for his first sip out of his
Sevres cup till he has read of ruin in the "Herald" or "Standard?" Might
the juvenile Conservative open his lips to imbibe old English fare or to
utter Young England opinions, till he has glanced over the "Chronicle?"
Can the financial reformer know breakfast-table happiness till he has
digested the "Daily News," or skimmed the "Express?" And how would it be
possible for mine host to commence the day without keeping his customers
waiting till he has perused the "Advertiser" or the "Sun?"

In like manner the provinces can not--once a week at least--satisfy
their digestive organs till their local organ has satisfied their minds.

Else, what became of the 67,476,768 newspaper stamps which were issued
in 1848 (the latest year of which a return has been made) to the 150
London and the 238 provincial English journals: of the 7,497,064 stamps
impressed on the corners of the 97 Scottish, and of the 7,028,956 which
adorned the 117 Irish newspapers? A professor of the new science of
literary mensuration has applied his foot-rule to this mass of print,
and publishes the result in "Bentley's Miscellany." According to him,
the press sent forth, in daily papers alone, a printed surface amounting
in twelve months to 349,308,000 superficial feet. If to these are added
all the papers printed weekly and fortnightly in London and the
provinces the whole amounts to 1,446,150,000 square feet of printed
surface, which was, in 1849, placed before the comprehensive vision of
John Bull. The area of a single morning paper--the Times say--is more
than nineteen and a half square feet, or nearly five feet by four,
compared with an ordinary octavo volume, the quantity of matter daily
issued is equal to three hundred pages. There are four morning papers
whose superficies are nearly as great, without supplements, which they
seldom publish. A fifth is only half the size. We may reckon, therefore,
that the constant craving of Londoners for news is supplied every
morning with as much as would fill about twelve hundred pages of an
ordinary novel; or not less than five volumes.

These acres of print sown broad-cast, produce a daily crop to suit every
appetite and every taste. It has winged its way from every spot on the
earth's surface, and at last settled down and arranged itself into
intelligible meaning, made instinct with ink. Now it tells of a
next-door neighbor; then of dwellers in the utter-most corners of the
earth. T